Bad Idea To Love You
by Alwaysgurl2013
Summary: "It was a bad idea to love you." The words, though whispered in the dead of night, broke his heart more than she would ever know. He didn't even know until that moment that she loved him, but to know that she loved him and already regretted it was almost too much for one solitude moment in time.


"It was a bad idea to love you." The words, though whispered in the dead of night, broke his heart more than she would ever know. He didn't even know until that moment that she loved him, but to know that she loved him and already regretted it was almost too much for one solitude moment in time. He wants to call her out on it, to ask her why she thinks it's a bad idea, why she's keeping one foot out the door, but he doesn't have the chance to before his phone goes off. Playing as though he had been asleep and hadn't heard her, he lets it ring once, twice before turning over to grab it.

"Hotchner." Dead of night phone calls could only mean more bad news. Somewhere in the country there was a person that's life had ended and they were going to need to go solve the who done it of it all. He listens to the blonde on the other end of the phone and takes in the information that he can. Emily will be getting a call soon after his, so she's already sitting up, trying to wipe the sleep, or lack there of, from her eyes.

"We have a case?" She asks as he hangs up the phone. He nods and turns to get out of bed, walking over to his closet to pull clothing out. After only a few of dead silent moments had passed, her phone goes off and she picks up, listening to her friend give her the same information that Aaron had been given a few minutes before. The team didn't know about them, so every time they had a case, there is a double call even if he could have easily passed the information to her. She's just glad the call hadn't come a few minutes earlier while she was making her confession in the dark. She didn't know how to explain everything in her mind to Aaron right now and if he had been awoken by the phone to hear what she had said, she doesn't know how she would have explained the words she didn't completely understand herself to him.

"We're briefing on the plane." He can't tell if Emily's asking or stating this so he says the only thing he can think of.

"It's a bad one." _Like us apparently_, Aaron can't help but think to himself and he finds himself wondering again why Emily would believe that loving him was a bad idea. But he can't bring himself to ask the question; can't bring himself to break the calm before the storm.

During a case, Aaron can usually keep his eyes off Emily, or at least enough that it won't cause any unwanted attention that might make their relationship to be called out by a team of profilers. They've kept it under wraps for now, but if Emily's having her own doubts and Aaron no longer knows where he stands, he really wants to keep their relationship away from anyone who might push it even farther away than if they have a chance to talk through whatever fears and doubts Emily has. But even as Aaron wracks his brain he can't figure out what Emily meant the other night. How was their relationship a bad idea? How was it bad for them to love each other? Did they love each other? He knew he had feelings for this confusing brunette that held his heart, but he didn't know how to voice it either. Could he ask her? Or would that push her farther away? Did he have any other option really? It was driving him crazy not knowing.

"Emily, what did you mean the other night?" She is turning over pictures on the table in between them, the team is out in the field and this might be the one time he has her alone until they were home again. Maybe it isn't the ideal time to ask but his brain wouldn't shut off and he needs to know.

"Hmmm?" Emily's nonchalant noise let's him know she doesn't know what he's talking about.

"It's a bad idea to love me?" Dark eyes meet hazel ones and she realizes he had been awake after all.

"Fuck." The word comes out whispered, but the lack of denial or trying to say he misheard her is more alarming to him.

"What did you mean by it Emily? Please tell me it doesn't mean what it sounds like." Aaron pleads.

"You were supposed to be asleep."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You weren't supposed to hear it."

"But I did. So what did you mean by it?"

"It means loving each other is going to get one of us or the team hurt in the long run. It's a bad idea to love someone on the team."

"Are you saying this because of what happened to Haley?"

"God, no Aaron I would never!" Emily drops the pictures back on the table having forgotten she's supposed to be sorting through them. She pushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear trying to give herself a moment to think through everything before trying to continue her thought process. "I- I can't- I wouldn't- I promise it wasn't about that. I wouldn't take a shot at something like that. I meant it in a this job is dangerous enough without us loving each other and still needing to keep an eye out for the team's safety on top of everything."

"Emily, I could care less about the team if you love me-"

"That's my whole point Aaron. That is why loving you is a bad idea. If we put each other before the team, someone could get hurt. I can't do that. We need to stop whatever this," She motions between them, "is, before someone on the team gets injured or killed. It's not fair to put them in the crossfire because we're taking unnecessary risks."

"Emily being in love with you is not what I would consider an unnecessary risk."

"We need to stop being in love. We need to just go back to being friends to keep the team in tact."

"But friends don't look at each other like we do Emily. I can't just be your friend knowing that I love you."

"We're over. We're done Aaron." Her words shock and anger him. He has just told her that he loves her and she's said they're over?

"What?"

"We're done Aaron. I can't do this anymore."

"If that's what you really want, then fine." He harshly spits the words out, but even as the words leave his mouth he knows he is going to regret them. Even though they both still have work to do, he pushes his chair out and walks away from the table. He needs to get away from the frustrating and heartbreaking woman sitting across from him. He can't focus on anything with her intoxicating smell and look being so close to him. He also can't sit next to her and not pull her into his arms and not let her go until they fix everything.

They both said they loved each other, but loving each other is not enough? Emily clearly has fears about the safety of the team and he can't quell them, so can they ever truly be more than what they were? He wants to say that love is enough but the darker part of his mind, the part that still taunts him for losing Haley tells him that Emily is right to say that it's a bad idea to love him. Why would she want to anyway? He's got nearly 8 years on her senior and a kid from his first marriage. She deserves better anyway. And he'll tell himself that everyday if he has to. She deserves better and she wants something other than him so he'll let her walk away, even if it breaks his heart every time he has to remind himself that she's no longer his.

"So Hotch and Prentiss are pretending they aren't together anymore right?" Morgan asks JJ as they both walk into the bullpen a few Mondays later. They're about to jet off for yet another case or maybe stay in the area who knows, but the whole team could tell there was something off with the two dark haired profilers, whether they were going to tell the team or not about their relationship.

"They broke up while we were in Wisconsin."

"Wait for real?" Emily and Hotch had broken up almost two weeks ago? Morgan had assumed they were playing that they weren't together anymore to try and keep it hidden from the team since almost everyone had figured it out, boy genius excluded of course.

"I guess so?"

"But they both are in love."

"But they both are too stupid to admit it or they both know they love each other and there is something else stopping them, but all I know is Emily was far too snippy the remainder of the case for this to not be bothering her."

"So do we push them towards each other?" JJ shakes her head.

"I think we have to just let this ride itself out." The blonde answers. "We can't make them do anything they don't want to. Luckily this case is local."

"Maybe that will push them to think how stupid they're being." Walking in the round table room, there is an icy space between the two profilers in question. For the first time in months, they are sitting on opposite sides of the table. JJ and Morgan raise eyebrows at each other, but say nothing. They both know this is going to be a long case.

Not like it wouldn't have been a long case no matter what. It was a local case involving children which always made it a hard one for the team. Cases involving kids weren't hard enough, but when they were local and the teams kids could fit the profile, it made it harder. Add this fucking breakup to it all and Aaron is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day as one of the books he has read to Jack a thousand and one times likes to call it. All he wants to do is pull Emily into his arms to calm himself from the fact that his son fits the unsub's preference, but instead all he can do is grit his teeth and listen to Garcia rattle off the profile notes that they have so far.

He wishes he could have just gone and paired him and Emily up like he had been for the past months, but Emily initiated the break up. He needed to respect that even if he hated it. So he needed to pretend it didn't bother him as much as it did and pair the team up like they did for the years before he and Emily got together. He can go with Dave or Em- JJ or any of the other team members who aren't the brunette who interrupts his every thought.

He can feel the team, especially Dave's eyes on him throughout assignments, so he feels the need to act more in control than he is. He spends the case overcompensating for information he doesn't have and feelings he shouldn't be feeling. He just wishes this case was over so he doesn't feel on edge as much.

"Are you ok Aaron?"

"I'm fine Dave."

"Now why don't I believe that? Could it be the brunette that can't keep her eyes off you even though you're trying to make it seem like there's nothing wrong with you both?"

"There is nothing wrong with me and Prentiss."

"Why don't I believe that?"

"Because you like meddling in business that you shouldn't?"

"Or could it be because you're both upset and neither want to be called out on it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about how your relationship is falling apart and you're both pretending like it's not killing you both."

"There is no relationship Dave."

"Well, she's pretending she doesn't miss you. You're pretending you don't care. Ego is a relationship killer so no doubt there is no relationship anymore."

"Fine, you want me to show I care? She looks at me and it hurts, it rips my soul apart. Everything hurts so fucking much." Aaron hadn't realized that Emily was close enough to hear him say that, to admit everything that he had been holding back for weeks since he had heard those words whispered in the dark.

"I'm sorry." The two words slip out of her mouth before she can stop them. And while there were moments that all he had wished for was that the two of them could just apologize and get back together, right now in this moment of actually admitting his pain, he can't just coolly accept her apology.

"I don't want your apologizes! I want the girl who was my girlfriend back, the girl I fell in love with back. Not this half assed version of you!" The words rip out of his mouth with the anger he never wanted to show her. As Aaron's accusations leave his lips, Dave leaves the two ex lovers alone. The only people that need to be a part of this conversation are the two brunettes.

"Maybe I can't be her anymore. Maybe I never really was her from the start. Maybe she was just an ideal that you came up with and I was just trying to be every day and the moment I realized I never could succeed at being her was the day I was freed." Emily sucks in a harsh breathe before letting her angry words run from her mouth without thinking, "I can't wait for the day you realized you fucked up."

"You're saying this is all my fault?!" Aaron's voice goes down to a harsh whisper.

"No. I'm just saying this isn't all my fault either." Emily lets a breathe out to try and give her mind a moment to think before saying something she regrets. "I look at you sometimes and I realize that it still hurts too. You're not the only one in pain." The truth leaves her lips this time and she knows he feels it too, even if it's deep down by the way he shudders in a tight breathe in recognition of her statement.

"If it doesn't destroy you when it's over, then it wasn't love." Aaron says with a shrug. "Maybe in another world you would have chosen me."

"I did choose you and it wasn't enough." Emily bites at the inside of her cheek as she remembers the nights she sat up questioning everything while the man she loved slept soundly next to her.

"Wasn't enough to what, risk it all?" Aaron hisses out before he can stop himself and she shakes her head.

"I choose to save you from me. Loving you was the most exquisite form of self destruction." His heart felt like it had been stabbed with her words, even if they were close to poetry.

"Emily, we were glorious together."

"We would have destroyed the team if we stayed together."

"You don't know that. You never gave us a chance. You decided that loving each other was never going to end well."

"It wouldn't have."

"I disagree-"

"This is where our argument just goes back to the same place Hotch." Emily's voice is barely louder than a whisper. "We need to move on from each other if we want to keep the team together."

"I really hope you regret giving up on us Em." Her teeth sink further into her cheek with his using her nickname. It had been too long since it had rolled off his tongue and hearing it once again pains her heart.

"Maybe I did give up on us too easily-"

"You did."

"But where could we have honestly gone from where we were? We tell the team we were sleeping together? Maybe go on to tell each other that we loved each other at one point? Then one day one of us gets too distracted with the other being in the field because our job is dangerous and one of us ends up hurt, or worse off, dead. Then what? We have a couple good years at most before the job ruins it all and that's all it was worth? Is that really what you wanted?"

"I wanted the chance to at least have attempted it all Emily."

"Well, I wanted to make sure that our team wasn't at risk, our family wasn't at risk because we were being stupid in love. So maybe I gave up, but it was inevitable that one of us would have lost the other or broken the other's heart. The inevitable happened Hotch."

"No Emily. It wasn't the inevitable. You got scared. You ran. You let go of me so easily."

"Easy? You think it was easy?" Emily's eyes stare into his and she can finally see that he believes it was easy for her to walk away from him, from them. "Leaving you was the most difficult thing I've ever done. But it came down to trying to prevent a worse pain from happening. It came down to preventing my heart from shattering or your life from ending and I chose the one I could live with. And I have a bad habit of breaking my own heart, so..."

"You're scared of the way I make you feel because you'd rather not feel anything. You'd rather be alone than be loved and that makes me so sad for you Emily."

"It's better this way. A little lonelier, but better."

"No, fuck that. It's not better this way Emily. We could be happy together." He pulls her towards him unable to let her be so alone and so far from him.

"We could be risking our lives together, the lives of our team."

"Our team is able to watch their own backs sometimes too. And they want us to be happy."

"Not if it risks their lives." Emily's hands push against his chest, trying to release herself from his arms. "I won't risk their lives Hotch-"

"Or you won't risk your heart?" Aaron looks deep in Emily's eyes, trying to read what she's actually afraid of. "Goddammit Emily talk to me! Don't give me this bullshit about it being for the team's sake! They never would have let us break up if they thought we were doing it for them, hell I wouldn't have let us break up if I knew your real reasoning. But there's something else that's pushing you from me and I think it's yourself. You won't let yourself be happy."

"What if we are inevitable to implode no matter what?"

"What if we are destined to be infinitely happy?" Aaron counters her argument. "Can you give us a chance please Emily?"

"I can't." Emily breaks out of his arms and walks away from him. It hurts him to watch her walk out of his life again, but he won't- he can't stop her. She's making her decision and he has to let her go. They have a case to solve and she clearly won't listen to anything he has to say.

The knock on his door a few hours after Jack had gone to sleep pulls Aaron from his thoughts of everything that had happened over the past week. The case and the argument with Emily, everything was swirling in his head, but only someone from his team would be knocking on his door this late, so Aaron swings the door open without looking through the peephole. The person on the other side of the door surprised him. "I wanted it to be you. God damn, I really did." Emily's words catch him off guard.

"What are you talking about Emil-Prentiss?" He reminds himself that she walked away from the possibility of them being a them ever again and so he needs to be more boss like and less ex like.

"When I realized how hard I was falling for you, I really thought we could be infinite. I thought I could see us having a happily ever after and the whole walking down the aisle, future with kids and a dog and a house, and living into old age together. And it terrified me, but at the same time it was all I wanted." Her words were the exact opposite of what she had spent so long telling him over the past few weeks.

"What do you mean Prentiss?"

"Loving you terrified me. I knew it would be the end of me because losing you terrified me even more than loving you did. So I knew I needed to tear myself away from it before it ripped me apart. Because I could handle a heartbreak, but losing you when I loved you, that I would never get over."

"You already said that you would rather be alone than be with me. Your point is clear Prentiss." Aaron's face goes colder as he stares at her through the open doorway.

"I don't think I could survive losing you a second time though." Her words catch him off guard.

"What?"

"Losing you this time, it hurt but not as much as it could have, because I made the decision. I pushed you away. But if I got back- if we got back together, I'm opening myself up to losing you again and I don't know if I could survive that. But I'm willing to risk it. I can't stay away from you any longer. I'm trying to stay away, I tried to force myself to, but I can't. The only place I want to be is," Her voice drops to a whisper, "in your arms again." There's a stunned silence and Aaron processes what Emily just said to him. "But if I've lost you already, I understand. It would make sense that it's been too long. That I pushed you too far-"

"Stop." The one word is all he can manage while he tries to figure out what to say to her.

"I get it Aaron. I'm sorry. Forgive me for intruding." Emily looks at the man who holds her heart and wishes he would say anything more than the one word that had left his lips. But since he hadn't, she decides to say one last thing before leaving. "Our 'could have been' will haunt me for the rest of my life. I hope one day you can forgive me." She turns to walk back down the steps.

"Emily, stop." Her heart skips a beat in hope that maybe he isn't just angry. "You haven't lost me." Those four words are all she needs to hear to turn around and face the man that still holds her heart.

"Really? But I pushed and kicked and-"

"We both said things we shouldn't have. We both walked out on each other. I want us to get back to being an us. I'm willing to risk it too." Emily's eyes find his and she sees that even though there is hurt there, there is also hope. Hope for a future that might involve a them.


End file.
